An easy watch for IWC lovers to enjoy is this new model in the Ingenieur collection that incorporates a lot of what we enjoy about the brand. This may be the first time, or among the few times that IWC has used its rattrapante movement in an Ingenieur piece. Rattrapante is a fancy name for a split second chronograph, or as IWC refers to it in this watch, a “Double Chronograph.”
Double chronographs are an interesting complication that are mechanically very cool, but probably not something most people are going to use very often. They offer a second chronograph that measures up to 60 seconds outside of the timing of the main chronograph. When not being used, this second chronograph hand usually “hides” under the main chronograph seconds hand, until you want to use it to time something else. Watch nerds can go ga-ga over these, and they actually aren’t that common, though you’ll find a good variety of them in various IWC watches. Now it has come to this collection with the IWC Ingenieur Double Chronograph Titanium.
2013 sees two versions of this new titanium sport watch in 45mm wide cases. While this is the same year that IWC released a more formal 40mm wide version of the Ingenieur, for us this collection is still about large, cool looking sport watches. At 45mm wide and 16mm thick… this is that type of watch. Though in titanium it isn’t too heavy, which is certainly a good thing. We also feel that the Ingenieur collection as a whole looks very nice in titanium’s slightly more gray metal color mixed with the dark strap and bezel screws.
IWC offers two dial colors for the Ingenieur Double Chronograph Titanium. One is black with blue accents, but we keep being drawn to the “silver-plated” tone dial. While not exactly white, it is an almost white colored sport watch dial – and we love those. In our review of the Porsche Design Flat Six P’6310 watch, we discussed the difficultly in producing light-dialed sport watches, and what it takes to succeed. The key is the right black materials and a lack of reflectivity. This is very well executed with the thickly-outlined-in-black hands and applied hour indicators. While the dial has a touch of gloss to it, all of the indicators stand out with a beautiful, instrumental gusto on the Ingenieur Double Chronograph Titanium face.
